The Outdoor Living Digest

Hurricane season has a way of sneaking up on people. Every year, homeowners in storm-prone areas rush to get ready, and a good number of them leave it far too late. When a storm finally rolls through, the homes that come out okay usually belong to people who did the work early. A little preparation...

The short answer is yes, you can still install them – and putting it off any longer is a gamble you don’t want to take. A lot of homeowners figure that if they didn’t prepare before the season started, the moment has passed. We hear it constantly at Smart Shade Structures. But that thinking gets...

Some of the best nights we can remember happened in a backyard. There’s the open air, the light going soft, somebody’s glass clinking against another a few feet away. Indoor rooms just don’t do that. But here’s the thing nobody tells you: a night people actually talk about later takes more than good food and...

Outdoor living has climbed up the priority list for good reason. A well-planned garden is really just another room of your home, except this one has fresh air and better lighting. The trouble starts when summer hits its stride. Without shade, even a gorgeous yard turns into somewhere you’d rather not be by mid-afternoon.  Good...

A good pergola doesn’t shout. It just sits there, quietly turning a slab of patio into a room you actually want to use. Our professionals at Smart Shade Structures have installed it. Now comes the part people enjoy: deciding what goes in it. Furniture, lighting, a few plants. Those choices stick around for years and...

A lot of outdoor upgrades sound great in the showroom and disappoint at home. The bioclimatic pergola is one of the few that actually holds up. Spend a season under one and the old patio starts to feel like a missed opportunity. What is it, though? At its simplest, a bioclimatic pergola is a structure – freestanding...